


Take Your Step

by bluntblade



Series: In My Head and On My Mind [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluntblade/pseuds/bluntblade
Summary: Kaydel contemplates an invitation to join the crew of the Millennium Falcon.
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Kaydel Ko Connix & Leia Organa, Kaydel Ko Connix & Poe Dameron, Kaydel Ko Connix & Rey, Kaydel Ko Connix/Rey, Poe Dameron/Original Male Character(s)
Series: In My Head and On My Mind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719016
Kudos: 8





	Take Your Step

“You’ve already got a crew,” Kaydel says.

Poe’s got his arms folded and he looks mildly amused. “And yet I still need a comms officer on the Falcon. Ideally one who knows their way around a scanning rig.”

She’s had an inkling that this offer was coming for a while. The little incident on Magna Leptus, the one that had Rey and Finn fighting for their lives as gladiators for the best part of a week, has convinced Poe of the need to get a communications specialist for his little band of fighters. And that, in turn, has brought him to Kaydel’s door.

“Then why me?”

She’s excited by the notion, and honoured, but she’s every bit as nervous. The job constitutes a huge responsibility, which terrifies the part of her that dwelt for so long on her role in the Crait mutiny. If she screws this role up then it could easily mean getting Poe Dameron, Finn, Chewbacca, Rose Tico and Rey all killed.

Rey constitutes her own skipped heartbeat for Kaydel. The nervy push-pull of their dynamic doesn’t seem to have lessened at all with the Jedi’s brief time in captivity; they’ve since whiled away a couple of afternoons talking in the canteen or on the training fields.

Her friend the commander sighs. He knows all this, but he sticks to the specifics of the job. “Because I know you’re good at your job, and you’ll gel with the crew. C’mon, you’re already pals with Rose, we’re friends, and don’t think I haven’t seen the way you look at Rey.”

She scowls at him.

Poe eyes her levelly. “I’m still not hearing my yes or no. OK, so leaving that aside, I remember when we first met, and how fired up you were. You’ve still got that fire in your belly, don’t pretend you haven’t.”

“Well, I seem to remember someone who pulled strings and got me put in Mission Control.”

Neither of them mention the reason why Poe did that. Kaydel’s not sure either of them has uttered the name of Sokka Kest Connix to the other in the last two years. She still catches him looking at her though, when the angle or the light brings out her resemblance to her long-lost brother. And she sees the sadness in his eyes.

How much does it hurt him when that happens? What does it do to him to see in her the ghost of someone who was so dear to him?

The last time she can remember them talking about Sokka, Poe said he was glad he could think of her as his sister in spirit, when he’d hoped to be her brother-in-law.

It strikes her that this must scare Poe on some level, to ask her to step into the line of fire with his crew.

Poe seems to sense her thoughts. “You know how much I’d like to make the easy call and pick someone else, don’t you?” He takes her shoulder in his hand. “Lieutenant, you are the best comms operative here, and I’m only after the best for the Falcon.”

And when Kaydel looks inside herself, she realises that as well as the old anger over the loss of Sokka, she fears suffering the same bereavements again if Poe and company don’t make it back from a mission. Especially where Rey is concerned; the notion of that unquestioning, instinctive compassion being torn away is too much to take.

Which is when Kaydel realises that she couldn’t live with herself if she let someone else take this role. “I’ll do it.” He looks at her hard, but she puts some iron in her voice. “I’ll be your comms officer, Poe.”

An odd shade of sorrow flickers in Poe’s eyes, but it’s chased out by pride and he clasps her shoulder. “Sokka would be proud, Kaydel. Come on, let’s tell your new crewmates.”

“Hold fire on that,” Kaydel quickly says. Poe’s already halfway to the door, and looks at her with a raised eyebrow. “I should really talk to Leia first.”

The lights are low in Leia’s study when Kaydel enters. She hopes it means the General is going to turn in soon, and fears that it doesn’t.

“General, I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

Leia looks up from her work and smiles. “Don’t be, Kaydel. I needed an excuse to put down the tablet.” She sighs. “Farrun, Lando and Poe can fret and prod me all they like, but it’s hard to make yourself step back.”

“We wouldn’t expect anything else, General. But, uh, happy to be of help.”

The general turns her seat and tilts her head a little. Kaydel pretends she doesn’t notice the way the stylus trembles a little in Leia’s hand. “And how can I help you, Kaydel?”

“Poe’s asked me to join the Falcon’s crew.”

“And he’s made a good pick.”

“But…”

“But what?” Leia puts down the stylus and leans back against the desk. “Why’ve you come here tonight, Kaydel? Hmm?” She studies Kaydel’s face. “Are you looking for permission, or are you hoping that someone will talk you out of it, even ground you?”

Kaydel opens her mouth and tries to summon up the right words for a few seconds. Then she concedes that actually, she has no idea what the right words are.

Leia’s eyebrow is arched in the way Kaydel learned to imitate in her teens. “Because I’m not about to do that. Poe’s right, you should go with them.”

“You’re sure?”

Leia reaches out and squeezes her upper arm a little. “I’ve seen you grow, learn and weather so much in these last few years. And you want to help, Kaydel; it’s why we took you on and it’s why we took your brother on too. If I’m not mistaken,” she gives a sad little smile, “that’s why you got on board with Poe’s mutiny back over Crait.”

Kaydel eyes her boots at that, but Leia’s gaze is still warm when she lifts her eyes back to her.

“Even when you made mistakes, you had the right intentions, and now you’ve learned the hard lessons that flow from those mistakes. So I’m going to say, take this chance. Step up and play the part you’ve earned.”

Even so, Kaydel decides to sleep on it before she gives Poe her answer.

Well, she says sleep. Her head’s too full to just drop up. For a good hour, she peruses her family album. That she has it at all is vaguely miraculous considering the screaming row that precipitated her running away to the Resistance, after Sokka’s death. She very nearly left it at home that night.

Mercifully, she’s kept it with her in digital form, even through the escape from D’Qar and the precarious months of exile after that. Now she plugs the little data-stick into a tablet and spools through nineteen years. There are milestones; birthdays, Life Days and graduations. But side by side with those are all the mundane moments that somehow come together to make a family life. Mealtimes, homework, and play with her siblings.

And it’s Sokka whom Kaydel lingers on now, proud in his academy and then Republic Navy uniform. Except there’s one last shot, which she took herself, of Sokka in rugged civilian wear and sat in a swanky uptown restaurant.

“You’ve never even brought a boyfriend somewhere this fancy, Kest,” she’d observed at the time, unable to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

He’d snorted. “Well Ko, in those cases I was banking on seeing the boyfriend again.”

“Meaning…” Realisation hit, and Kaydel stared at him. “Whoah, you’re serious?”

“Yeah. I wanted to have this talk where Kyra and the ‘rents wouldn’t be hollering at me,” he smiled.

He was shipping out the next day, taking passage to Takodana. There he would meet up with a Resistance contact and be spirited off to a base, there to begin his new life.

A few years later, his sister would follow, but Sokka wouldn’t be there to greet her. Instead, it would be Poe Dameron.

Since then, Kaydel’s been keenly aware of the urge to honour her lost brother’s example, and Leia’s advise. How does Rose like to put it? “Saving what we love”?

Well, she guesses, maybe this is the best way to do it. Running support for Rose, Poe, Finn and Rey… especially for Rey. Kaydel does, after all, kind of owe her – and immediately she remembers Rey’s forehead against hers, the cool and soothing “touch” of Rey’s mind. The lifting of the guilt which had weighed on her for weeks…

She’s doing it. Kaydel Ko Connix is getting aboard the Millennium Falcon.

Kaydel gets up early, heading first to the control room where she bids farewell to her colleagues, before making for the Falcon. She walks up the ship’s ramp with her back straight and her eyes forward.

The Scrappers have been notified about their new shipmate, and welcome her aboard with hearty greetings and slaps on the back. She gets hugs from Finn and Rose, and a wry salute from Poe, sat at the Dejarik table with Chewie. R2-D2 rolls up and beeps his own welcome, and Kaydel acknowledges it with a cheery nod.

Her composure only falters when she finds Rey leaning against the wall by her cabin. “Hello Comms.”

“Hey.” It comes out quite a bit shakier than Kaydel would like, but she feels that bit better when she sees the slight nerviness in Rey’s posture and her face. “Reporting for duty, Captain.”

“And welcome aboard,” Rey smiles. “Good to have you back on the crew. There’s a bit more space than the last time you were on the Falcon, and we’ve actually got some storage space for your bags.” She beckons. “Want me to give you the tour, shipmate, before we get to your new rig?”

Kaydel’s heart is skipping. She’s on the crew. “Please, Rey, lead on.”


End file.
